MARCIEGAMBETTA

Hello, incoming students of Dr. Laing De Urbina! I would like to ease some fears you may have coming into this class. Dr. Laing De Urbina's class does have a lot of writing but, if you have discipline, tenacity, and perseverance, you will see dramatic improvement in both your writing and understanding of classic and ancient texts. Do not be afraid to email Dr. Laing De Urbina and ask her questions, she is very helpful and responsive. She wants us to succeed.

 

I encourage you to start your ePortfolio immediately. Set up your website and as you go along in the class do your work on the website and submit it that way. At the end of class when you are overloaded with work and life, you will have some room to breathe because most of the work for your final Legacy/ePortfolio assignment is done. There are many places to get free websites, the one I use is wix.com, there is also weebly, and various others. I really liked wix and found it easy to use.  

 

Here are a few things to keep this in mind, that will ultimately help you and help your grade. Every time you do an assignment you need to post at least two responses to other classmates, even on the very first assignment. Dr. Laing De Urbina also would like you, when responding to other classmates, to use their name in your response. Another thing, Dr. Laing De Urbina is a stickler about are her PREP'd paragraphs, make sure everything you write is at least four sentences. When you are starting an assignment, DO NOT only use the link provided in the assignment, there is valuable information waiting for you to find (syllabus, pages, files). Refer back to the Syllabus frequently, see if there is any pertinent information or links for you to check out. MAKE SURE you also check the "Files" and "Pages" buttons to see if there is any useful information or samples to review. ALWAYS check the links provided and ALWAYS look at the samples. When you are viewing the samples, make sure you take notice of any notes Dr. Laing De Urbina has left for you. Look for rubrics or checklists, review them before doing your assignment and again before submitting your assignment. I would refer back to the syllabus, pages, files, checklists, rubrics, and the Welcome assignment for pretty much every assignment. It is not hard to do well in this class if you make sure you READ everything in it's entirety. 

 

In my ePortfolio, you will find a large variety of assignments for your perusal. The home page is an introduction with some information about myself. I posted the writing I did for the very first assignment, "Welcome", along with some of my favorite quotes, a poem I have liked for years, and a picture of my children. I have included my chapbook, the chapbook is a book of poems you write along with illustrations. The chapbook was a fun assignment, I am not a "writer" so I entered into the assignment with some trepidation but it turned out great. 

 

I have included some of my sample Morning Pages, along with my responses to classmates, and a link to the Morning Pages website. I was glad that we did not have to post our daily writing for everyone to see, we just had to post the process of how we wrote everyday. At first, with this assignment, I felt like a two year old who had dug in his heels, crossed his arms, and didn't want to do it. Just because I felt that way, did not prevent me from doing it and I am glad I stuck with it. I not only noticed an improvement with the quality of my writing, the ease and flow of my writing, and how this spilled over into my other work, but I noticed improvements in my classmates as well. If you read my aptly titled Morning Pages Process Paper, "How the Morning Pages Helped a Skeptic", you will see my transformation and useful tips on ways you can use the Morning Pages to develop your writing.

 

In the sidebar to the right, you will find a link to our Collaborative Mid-Term Project. Again, this was not something I looked forward to. The project itself seemed like fun, but I am not a "group project" person. A word of advice, LOCATE your team as soon as Dr. Laing De Urbina assigns them to you and email them. For a true collaboration, you simply cannot wait until a few days before the assignment is due, start early. Based on the feedback we received from our classmates and the feedback from Dr. Laing De Urbina, I think our Mid-Term was a good accomplishment. Even though, I did not initially want to do a group project, looking back I can appreciate the assignment. I believe it was one of the assignments that separated the wheat from the chaff and it helped the remaining class members to become closer. One way to help develop the relationships with other students was the portion of the assignment where we had to do something to engage the class, this included emailing everyone and getting their responses. The only thing I would do differently would be to get started immediately. I did get started early but I think it would have been helpful to delegate tasks soon as groups were assigned. To have a true collaboration, it would be nice to submit our work to our teammates for their input. Overall, I think we were efficacious and were able to show how literature reflects the diversity of human experience across time and place.

 

I have provided my reading journals for your review, my favorite ones were on the Epic of Gilgamesh. In these journals I was more creative and provided links (including photos and songs) to back up my work. I took the time to research and find valid connections between the text and things that are still pertinent today. I think the analysis and response I gave in these journals was the best I did for the class. I really think I demonstrated my ability to connect and contextualize literary works in these journals and also demonstrated the awareness that literature reflects the diversity of human experience across time and place.

 

In comparison to the first reading journal I did for the class, I think these are superior. The first reading journals I did were Shakespeare's Sonnets. While, they were in no means bad, they were just not as developed. I was still discovering exactly what Dr. Laing De Urbina expected and wanted to see from us. I was struggling to understand how to tie in the Theories and Schools of Literary Criticism and the course objectives with the text. These first reading journals helped me begin to use my critical reading and writing skills to engage and analyze literary texts.

 

Throughout the journals I would use various Theories and Schools of Literary Criticism. The one I liked and used the most was Reader-Response Criticism, it went well with how I worked as I like to make notes and do backup research. I would use other criticisms in an effort to challenge and continually develop myself. I used the same school of thought in regards to the Literary Themes. Sometimes there would be a theme that was glaringly obvious, so I would try to find some other, more subtle themes to discuss. I wanted my work to stand out and not just align with the crowd. I feel I was successful in this and always made sure to provide ample support for my views. 

 

When you are writing your journals, MAKE SURE everything is written with at least four sentences in PREP'd paragraph style, with the exception of the definitions. Also, MAKE SURE that you have every element Dr. Laing De Urbina wants to see; First Thoughts, Selected Themes of Literature, Quotes, Q&A, Vocabulary, Summary /Conclusion includes selected Theories and Schools of Criticism applied to current reading. The First Thoughts is a paragraph about your initial ideas, prior to reading the text. Selected Themes of Literature is where you write a paragraph explaining the dominant themes evident in the text and how the text relates to the theme. The Quotes portion is where you find a couple of quotes that stick out to you and you write a paragraph for each one explaining why it stuck out to you. In the Q&A section you come up with questions you would like to answer and write a paragraph answering each question you came up with. The vocabulary section is the only section you do not need to write a paragraph for, you simply need to find a couple words you would like clarity on put their definitions and use them in a sentence. The Summary/Conclusion is where you write at least one paragraph summarizing the work and analyzing it. You also need to include a paragraph about the Theories and Schools of Criticism, you need to select a type of criticism to use and then explain how you used that criticism to better understand the text. 

 

Plato's Allegory of the Cave was another favorite of mine. I enjoyed the story and liked the challenge of tying it to something modern day. Again, I examined the work and drove myself to find correlations that were there, but less obvious. It was like a competition to see what other things I could make connections with, how many connections I could make, and then how I would tie it all together. The self imposed challenges I gave myself really helped me grow and develop.

 

I ended up really liking the comraderie in our class. The way Dr. Laing De Urbina had us respond to as least two people helped us all to connect. This requirement made the class seem more like a "real" class that we would attend in person. I have noticed, in my other classes where this is not a requirement, that I feel disconnected and like a crucial aspect is missing.

 

This course helps us to understand how important literature is, and how throughout the ages, it can still be relevant in our lives today. I am glad that I did not give up when I first started the class and was completely confused and overwhelmed. I feel the perseverance has paid off and am grateful for the experience. This class will definitely help me in the future.